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Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#51

Post by wyclif »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #36
jansan wrote: post #35

> traditional investor who made billions on successful gambles, or arbitrage, or creating liquidity, then gave virtually all of it away to effective charities, would seem, on net, way ahead of most of us morally. May I just mention the "philantropist" Bernie Madoff here?

It amazes me that otherwise smart people take this argument so seriously. If I'm a dirty doctor selling fentanyl to addicts, but I donate 50% of my income to Narcotics Anonymous, am I moral? Like a child can understand this doesn't make any sense, but people turn themselves into intellectual pretzels to rationalize this as virtue.

Yes. The entire post is a contortion to justify SBF as some sort of hero. But he's just another scam artist.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#52

Post by SheddingPattern »

Comparing what happened to FTX to a tiny leak in a gas tank due to a money saving measure by von Braun to balance the budget of the Apollo 11 mission, which results in a catastrophic failure and erroneously puts in question the ambition and mission to visit the moon and quantitative methods employed, is completely asinine.

This underplays what happened. FTX implosion appears to be due to fraud, lack of controls within the organisation and puts in question the judgement of the EA community, VCs, auditors, media.

The lessons to draw are not technical in nature. To continue the author's analogy: Wehrner von Brau as an individuap, construction and inspection procedures, or security culture at Nasa. They are instead fundamental. And would put in question all of NASA, the ecosystem (universities, suppliers), funders like the Congress and the president , and any oversight agencies.

If the what we've learnt so far is confirmed, then a Sequoia investment and its due diligence failed, trust in the EA community is undermined as it is not particularly ethical or rational.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#53

Post by oldgradstudent »

chaosbolt wrote: post #21
xiphias2 wrote: post #8

There's a guy in the clear stealing billions of dollars and nothing happens. People go to prison for stealing a car, this is literally 1000000 times bigger and he's not even arrested. He belongs to prison for a life time. All the other talk about crypto / regulation is just hiding how corrupt the system is for not arresting this guy instantly.

You don't go to prison when you are the 2nd biggest donor to the current president's campaign. Mark Karpales didn't go to prison for Mt Gox, he spent some months in jail because they were afraid he might leave Japan + Japan isn't like the west he prpbably doesn't have connections there, then left and worked for different financial companies and then started another company assessing risk or something. Alex Mashinsky…

These things take a ridiculous amount of time.

Theranos was exposed as a fraud in 2015. but only now, in 2012, Elizabeth Holmes' trial has reached sentencing with the prosecution asking for 15 years.

It's an unbelievable amount of for persecutors to untangle the web of transactions to be able to prove to a jury the existence and scale of fraud.

I would bet that both Mashinsky and SBF will spend a lot of quality time in a federal prison.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#54

Post by beowulfey »

timkam wrote: post #6
oldgradstudent wrote: post #2

> In the course of 2-3 days last week, SBF’s estimated net worth went from ~$15 billion to a negative number, possibly the fastest evaporation of such a vast personal fortune in all human history. No. His net worth was never $15B. His net worth might have been negative - less than that homeless living in a tent under the bridge. He was a fraud, a con man. There's no reason to assume his entire Effective Altruism inte…

Similarly, I don't think it's correct to characterize SBF's background as 'middle class'. Apparently, both of his parents are Profs at Stanford Law School. Most likely, they are wealthy or even rich and SBF could benefit from their network, gaining access to the American elites without too many questions asked.

I wouldn’t assume his family is wealthy, just because they are in academia. You don’t go to academia for the money.

(Although I’m not sure exactly what you mean by wealthy vs rich)

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#55

Post by michaelt »

bmitc wrote: post #3
oldgradstudent wrote: post #2

> In the course of 2-3 days last week, SBF’s estimated net worth went from ~$15 billion to a negative number, possibly the fastest evaporation of such a vast personal fortune in all human history. No. His net worth was never $15B. His net worth might have been negative - less than that homeless living in a tent under the bridge. He was a fraud, a con man. There's no reason to assume his entire Effective Altruism inte…

Effective altruism seems to be a sort of cult that’s way for elites (that is, the upper class) to both make themselves feel better and to give them yet another vector of superiority over people. In Sam Bankman-Fried’s case, he seems to have let it be a justification for the huge risks and likely criminal actions he took.

> Effective altruism seems to be a sort of cult that’s way for elites (that is, the upper class) to both make themselves feel better and to give them yet another vector of superiority over people.

Setting aside the case of this crypto conman, is being holier-than-though the valid criticism it feels like - or is that just my instinct to protect my ego, when the guy sitting next to me and earning the same salary donates 100x more much to charity than I do?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#56

Post by pjc50 »

npinsker wrote: post #12

One of the worst posts I've ever read from Scott, this reads as shockingly tone-deaf and blithely optimistic. He totally ignores the actual events that transpired and instead focuses on Sam's purported ideals, probably because Scott Aaronson feels a lot of kinship with him as a fellow nerd and therefore can't seem to believe anything other than "he just made a mistake somewhere". I don't want to pass judgment on Sam,…

"I confess to taking this sort of conflation extremely personally."

Man's still very upset about whatever happened to get him cancelled. I refuse to look up this particular piece of drama.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#57

Post by pjc50 »

chaosbolt wrote: post #21
xiphias2 wrote: post #8

There's a guy in the clear stealing billions of dollars and nothing happens. People go to prison for stealing a car, this is literally 1000000 times bigger and he's not even arrested. He belongs to prison for a life time. All the other talk about crypto / regulation is just hiding how corrupt the system is for not arresting this guy instantly.

You don't go to prison when you are the 2nd biggest donor to the current president's campaign. Mark Karpales didn't go to prison for Mt Gox, he spent some months in jail because they were afraid he might leave Japan + Japan isn't like the west he prpbably doesn't have connections there, then left and worked for different financial companies and then started another company assessing risk or something. Alex Mashinsky…

> yeah you have to turn off your pattern recognition or else be called a bad name

I don't see what's wrong with having "crypto=fraud" pattern recognition?

(Especially "staking"/"yield farming"! Anyone offering risk free high return is being dishonest about one of those two aspects)

Another good piece of pattern recognition: is this being run from a financial secrecy or tax evasion jurisdiction? (In this case, the Bahamas)

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#58

Post by williamcotton »

npinsker wrote: post #12

One of the worst posts I've ever read from Scott, this reads as shockingly tone-deaf and blithely optimistic. He totally ignores the actual events that transpired and instead focuses on Sam's purported ideals, probably because Scott Aaronson feels a lot of kinship with him as a fellow nerd and therefore can't seem to believe anything other than "he just made a mistake somewhere". I don't want to pass judgment on Sam,…

You mean he has the gall not to jump on the “let’s drag the billionaire on Twitter” bandwagon?

The way I am gauging the situation is that even if you tap your breaks on the “this guy is total scum and is trying to make a break for Argentina/Dubai” narrative that you’re complicit in his evil doings.

Why do I make that bold claim? Your very interpretation of Scott’s plea to wait on passing judgment.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#59

Post by whoooooo123 »

baxtr wrote: post #39
npinsker wrote: post #12

One of the worst posts I've ever read from Scott, this reads as shockingly tone-deaf and blithely optimistic. He totally ignores the actual events that transpired and instead focuses on Sam's purported ideals, probably because Scott Aaronson feels a lot of kinship with him as a fellow nerd and therefore can't seem to believe anything other than "he just made a mistake somewhere". I don't want to pass judgment on Sam,…

You see, one of the most important "rules" of good content marketing is being controversial. No-one like to talk about stuff that is average. Average is boring. Same here on HN btw. Who cares about another take how evil Sam is. It obviously pays off for Steve, at least in the short run. He is on the front-page of HN and has gained a couple of subscribers.

That's Scott. Steve's dead.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#60

Post by skywhopper »

Yikes. After railing against hypotheticals, he says:

    it seems morally hard to distinguish a
    cryptocurrency trader from the millions who
    deal in options, bonds, and all manner of
    other speculative assets. And a traditional
    investor who made billions on successful
    gambles, or arbitrage, or creating liquidity,
    then gave virtually all of it away to
    effective charities, would seem, on net, way
    ahead of most of us morally.
Okay, ignoring the fact that you can’t make billions off of trading derivatives without significant side effects— who has ever done this?

Warren Buffett maybe is the closest. He has promised to give away his fortune but he didn’t earn it in option trading. And whether his money will be used “effectively” is still an open question.

I’m sure lots of people have a fantasy of making billions and then helping the world with it. But more often the people who get there start believing that helping the world is best done by continuing to grow their own business interests. Couple that with the toxic ideas of EA and you start believing that any abuse you place on people today is fine because it’s in service of Long Term Propserity. That you never have to define what that is or exactly how your actions contribute is a feature.

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